The dispensing of liquid chemical products from one or more chemical receptacles is a common requirement of many industries, such as the laundry, textile, ware wash, healthcare instruments, and food processing industries. For example, in an industrial laundry facility, one of several operating washing machines will require, from time to time, aqueous solutions containing quantities of alkaloid, detergent, bleach, starch, softener and/or sour.
Increasingly, such industries have turned to automated methods and apparatus systems for dispensing chemical products. Such automated methods and apparatus systems provide increased control of product use and minimize human contact with potentially hazardous chemicals.
Contemporary automatic chemical dispensing systems used in industry require pumps for the liquid chemical products. Generally, these pumps deliver raw chemical product directly to a machine for use or to a dilution manifold or container where the chemical product is mixed with a diluent, typically water. Such systems are relatively simple in concept, but they can be expensive to build and operate. A number of methods for the control of dispensing chemicals have been developed and employed and are well known in the art. Each method generally utilizes techniques that require a means of input, typically through direct user interface or connectivity to a host device, e.g. Personal Computer (PC), not always available in the immediate environment, and provides limited features and capabilities through “out-of-the-box versions” of the devices. This is usually accomplished with a micro-controller built into the dispensing system or as an integral portion of the system. While these systems expand the capabilities of the dispensing systems, they are also limited in scope and are difficult to update with additional or new features and capabilities. Additionally, other more specialized modules may require specialized connections and/or complicated wiring in order to be used with contemporary dispensing systems.
It is therefore desirable to have the ability to move data to and from, or connect additional devices to an intelligent dispensing system.